WAGNER Parsifal (Fischer)

19 February 2018

‘I was not thinking of the Redeemer when I created Parsifal’, wrote Wagner. In ceremonial moments stage director Pierre Audi and his team – including artist Anish Kapoor as set designer – rightly eschew any Christian symbolism deriving from latter-day Mass rituals, opting instead (in the first Grail scene) for images of blood and sacrifice. Audi takes a hard but wholly justifiable line with the brothers’ treatment of their failed leader Amfortas. They cannot bear to ......